The Fires Burn
by androidilenya
Summary: Finrod reflects on his half-cousins.


***handwaves* Shifts to Sindarin at some point but Quenya names at the beginning, I don't even know. Go with it.**

**Written a few months ago for the 30 Days of Headcanon challenge.**

* * *

His father had spoken of his cousins, sons of the firstborn son of Finwë, with a guarded light in his eyes and a cautionary note in his voice. Oh, Arafinwë would never go so far as to warn his children against the sons of Fëanáro, but the implication was there — certain types of people were best avoided, if one wished to stay out of major conflicts.

Findaráto had heard their names, in lowered voices from the other side of darkened doors, when Arafinwë and Eärwen thought the children were asleep. They lived near the center of Tirion, further down white streets and past glimmering, golden-roofed houses. As if to avoid his half-brother, Arafinwë lived in the extreme east of the city, within the sight of the white walls, gilded with flame by treelight but far enough from the center to avoid the feud between Fëanáro and Nolofinwë.

_Feud_. It was a new word, to Findaráto and Arafinwë both, and he could hear it in the way his father hesitated over the word, pronounced it as if it were a savage animal, setting it down gently and backing away, seeing if it attacked.

Uncle Nolofinwë was familiar to him, as were his sons — Findekáno the eldest, who had taken to braiding gold through his hair, Turukáno, ever immersed in his books, and Irissë the baby, only about as old as Artanis (so not a baby, truly, but young enough that Findaráto paid her no mind in his early years, and little more afterwards). His cousins lived deeper in the city, and he often begged his father to be allowed to go with them to their home, alone, to play with Turukáno, who was only a few years older than him. Arafinwë never let him go, and he wondered if it had something to do with those names he'd only heard when they thought he wasn't listening — Nelyafinwë, Makalaurë, Tyelkormo, Carnistir.

He understood when he met them, of course. It wasn't that they were somehow evil, or twisted, not like the cautionary tales Grandfather Finwë told of the time before the Eldalië were led over the Sea to Valinor, the stories that made Aikanáro and Angaráto shiver (though they tried to hide it) and Artanis whimper (or they had, before she grew a bit and learned to laugh at the stories, eyes brazen and unafraid). The sons of Fëanáro were not quite that, not quite haunted spirits in the dark and spilled blood rust-red by morning (not yet, at least).

What they were was fire.

As vastly different as they seemed at first glance — Nelyafinwë with his mother's flame-red hair and steady temper, Makalaurë with his silver voice and sensitive spirit, Tyelkormo the fair and proud, Carnistir with lightning-quick temper and ruddy cheeks, Curufinwë's face the mirror of their father's, the twins alike in word and deed and looks — there was something common to all of them. It took Findaráto some time to pin it down, time which he spent observing (he was good at that) and thinking (he had some talent in that area, no matter how Artanis teased him about being too cautious).

It was something about the way their eyes flashed, the same light reflected through seven shades of grey. Something about the pride that he saw in the faces that were all, to varying degrees, their father's.

Later, of course, when he heard his father's half-brother curse the Valar and swear an Oath, when he saw the seven leap to their father's side with their swords drawn, he knew — these seven, they would never leave each other, never abandon each other, and into the darkness they would go together, shining like flame. Part of him, perhaps, was jealous — would his brothers, his kin, follow him to certain doom and stay until the very end?

(And that question was answered years later when he cast his crown to the ground and Orodreth turned away, fear and shame and horror heavy in the air, and his cousins smiled their twisted smiles and let him walk into blood for an oath just as binding as theirs.)

But all fire, unlike the other elements, is eventually quenched. He could see that, see the seven falling apart, dying in flame and blood under strange trees in dark lands. Yet he followed, regardless, knowing even then that there was only one way this could end, for him.

The ships burned, and he was not surprised. It wasn't that he had foreseen it, not as such, but Fëanor and his sons would never have returned, not once the ships had slipped over the dark horizon. Finrod watched his uncle stand knee-deep in the glassy water, silent and still as though carved of marble, eyes fastened on the horizon as if hoping for a hint of a sail, something, anything — and he had heard Turukáno's curses when the line between sea and sky was erased with red, and seen the teartracks down Findekáno's face. He had wondered what he would tell his people (his, now, with his father turned aside, though he submitted still to his uncle's rule) but there was never any question, any protest. There was no going back, not now.

The passage of the Helcaraxë was an ice-bound nightmare, white haze and bone-numbing chill, as days faded into nights faded into starless eternity, stumbling over broken shards of crystal brilliance, feeling the creak of the ice beneath the host's footsteps and praying that it would not give way.

So many fell.

But they reached Middle-earth as a new light rose in the sky, and Findaráto lifted his eyes to green hills and the sheen of moonlight, and thought maybe, maybe, Fëanor's words had been true, after all — that there was something here that there was not in Valinor, a hope and freedom as yet untasted by the Noldor.

(It was a lie, of course, because there was no such thing, not here and not in the West, but it was nice to hope for those brief moments.)

Then the news — Fëanor had fallen. Maedhros was captive. And Morgoth held sway here, in this dark and twisted land that had forgotten the light of the Valar and had never seen the light of the Two Trees.

He learned to live with war. One could get used to anything after long enough, he supposed. Even the new names eventually became as instinctive as the old – Aegnor, Angrod, Galadriel. Finrod, for himself, among others.

When they brought him news of his brothers' deaths, he did not weep. He felt, vaguely, that he should have — and perhaps, had it happened otherwise, he _would_ have. But Angrod and Aegnor had fallen in battle, fighting the Enemy, and he had known that there was no better way to die here in this Valar-forsaken land.

Then his cousins had come to his doors, bleeding and desperate, and they hadn't quite _begged_, but they needed refuge and Nargothrond was the only place they could get to. And he had looked at Celegorm, still proud and defiant, and at Curufin, grey eyes the eyes of a ghost, of a dead father, blood dripping from his armor and staining the marble floor.

And a voice like his father reminded him: _Be cautious, Findaráto_.

But there was leaping fire in his cousins' eyes, and he sent for servants to lead them to the guest chambers, and saw to Curufin's wounds himself, and pretended he could not see the betrayal that lurked in their eyes already.


End file.
